Uzbeks accused of masterminding the ethnic violence that victimised them
Tashkent (AsiaNews/Agencies) – Ethnic Uzbeks who in the night of 11 June warned their neighbourhoods of possible attacks were convicted of causing mass riots and inciting ethnic hatred. Overall, investigations into the ethnic violence of last June have laid most of the blame on Uzbeks, despite the fact that they were the ones who suffered the most. In fact, many have raised doubts about the objectivity of the investigations. Calls for an international commission have not been heeded.
When ethnic clashes broke out in predominantly Uzbek areas of Kyrgyzstan, many mosques issued the azan, the call to prayer. Ferghana news agency reports that the courts have convicted those who issued the call claiming they were meant to push people to revolt.
For example, prosecutors said that in the Nurdar, a village in the Nariman rural area of the Kara-Suu district, Zhamalidin Isakov and Abdymukhtar Shukurov, using loudspeakers, urged local residents "not to sleep but to prepare for fight”. According to the authorities, Nurmukhammad Matraimov and Yuldoshbay Kyrgyzbaev did the same in a mosque of the Kashkar-Kyshtak rural area. All four accused for four years in jail for inciting “mass riots” and “religious, race, and national hostility".
Dmitry Kabak, head of the Open Position Foundation, disagrees with the courts. “The elders, reading azan in Osh, did not call for riots", he said. On the contrary, the muezzins were trying to warn people about an upcoming threat after burst of gunfire had been heard. Other witnesses told the media the same thing.
A court in Kara-Suu District gave Uktomzhan Akhmatzhanov and Islamzhan Khusanov three years in prison. The two men, who are from Kashkar-Kyshtak, were convicted for writing ‘SOS’ on houses and driveways (pictured) on 12 June. The court accepted the prosecution’s claim that the signs were coded message for Uzbekistan troops set to move in to help fellow Uzbeks. No one however has provided any evidence that such a military intervention in Kyrgyzstan was ever planned.
In their sentences, the courts said that all the accused confessed. Defence lawyers have reacted saying that many of their clients were tortured in prison. Often, they were only able to see them three or four days after their alleged confession. With such evidence, many ethnic Uzbeks were given long prison sentences or even life in prison.
In addition, local media have pointed that almost all the investigators were ethnic Kyrgyz and that most of the accused were Uzbek.
Some weeks ago, backed by witnesses and documents, Human Rights Watch warned Kyrgyzstan, that the investigators into the June violence were failing to probe the role played by ethnic Kyrgyz.
In view of the situation, Uzbekistan President Islam Karimov has called for an international investigation. Recently, US President Barack Obama has also asked Kyrgyz President Roza Otunbaeva to accept an international commission of inquiry.
Kyrgyz authorities do not appear very interested in such proposals, nor do they seem interested in what courts are doing in the southern part of the country. Instead, they are much more concerned by former President Askar Akaev, who has been accused of rigging elections and referendum results in 2007 and 2009.
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